State IT chief's degree from unaccredited college

Monday

The $150,000-per-year information technology manager hired Monday by the Kansas governor earned his college degree from an unaccredited school linked to a consortium of diploma mills.

Jim Mann, selected by Gov. Sam Brownback as the executive branch's chief information technology officer, touts a degree in business administration from the University of Devonshire.

The university isn't among accredited institutions in the database maintained by the Council of Higher Education Accreditation in the United States. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the United Kingdom does not list the university tied to Mann as an accredited school.

University of Devonshire, at one time based in England with offices in this country, is frequently mentioned among schools labeled as diploma mills.

The school, according to a 2002 article by Wired, was owned by American residents in Romania, used mailing address in the United Kingdom, printed materials in Israel and banked in Cyprus. One estimate placed at 70,000 the number of degrees sold in the United States by their University Degree Program doing business as University of Devonshire and a series of other names.

UDP is a consortium of unaccredited diploma mills launched in the 1990s. In 2004, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported UDP was the "granddaddy" of diploma mill operations.

Mann wasn't available to comment on his academic record, but a spokeswoman for the governor said the decision by Brownback to hire Mann wasn't based on Mann's scholarly performance with the distance learning university.

"Jim Mann was hired based on his more than 20 years of top-flight, private-sector experience," said Sherriene Jones-Sontag. "Information technology is a constantly changing field where the best preparation is private-sector experience."

Brownback introduced Mann at a Statehouse news conference and declared he possessed leadership skills and background to reform the state's information technology system.

Mann's online resume indicated that he attended the University of Maryland from 1972 to 1974 and the University of Devonshire from 1993 to 1995.

His last executive position was with Service Brands International, but he said he resigned from that position in 2010 in a management dispute.

Shelley Blaszak, spokeswoman for Service Brands, said Mann resigned from his post after less than one year due to philosophical differences about the development and acquisition of software systems.

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